A whistleblower who had arranged a monetary deal with a third-party litigation funder still enjoys the authority to pursue fraud claims in the interest of the United States under the federal False Claims Act, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling in Ruckh v. Salus had been eagerly awaited by the Department of Justice and lawyers in the government contracts and health care space. The whistleblower, Angela Ruckh, a registered nurse who alleged various skilled nursing facilities in Florida had bilked the U.S. government’s Medicare program, had agreed to give a litigation funder, ARUS, less than 4% of her share of the potential recovery.